A boat carrying aid for Gaza's population and organized by Jewish groups worldwide has set sail from Cyprus today at 13.32 local time.

The boat, Irene, is sailing under a British flag and is carrying ten passengers and crew, including Jews from the US, the UK, Germany and Israel as well as an Israeli journalist.

The boat's cargo includes symbolic aid in the form of children's toys and musical instruments, textbooks, fishing nets for Gaza's fishing communities and prosthetic limbs for orthopaedic medical care in Gaza's hospitals.

When The Lancet published its Series on Health in the occupied Palestinian territory in March, 2009, we pledged to return to the issues raised in the series in subsequent years. On March 1-2 this year, we took part in a research conference on Palestinian health that was held at Birzeit University in the West Bank. Billed as the 2ndLancet-Palestinian Health Alliance Conference, our goal was to nurture and encourage a network of local and international scientists to do work that would advance the health of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, as well as the wider Palestinian diaspora. The best peer-reviewed abstracts of that meeting are today published online. We also publish 3 Comments, to set the context for that meeting and to describe the current status of the Palestinian health predicament.

The abstracts provide a window into life as it is in the occupied territory. We plan to track what we hope will be progress in coming years with annual research-based meetings of the Lancet-Palestinian Health Alliance.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has released the English-language version of Targeted Civilians: A PCHR Report on the Israeli Military Offensive against the Gaza Strip (27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009).

This report comprehensively documents the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, in which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed, and over 5,300 injured. The overwhelming majority of those killed and injured were civilians. Attention is also paid to the extensive destruction of civilian object, including homes, and the damage inflicted on industry, agriculture, and the infrastructure of the Gaza Strip.

Trauma, grief, and PTSD in Palestinian children victims of War on Gaza

Aug 29, 2010 at 05:20 PM

Abstract

Purpose:Exposure to war trauma has been independently associated with posttraumatic stress (PTSD) and grief in children and adults. The aim of this study was to establish the relationship between war traumatic experiences due to last war on Gaza, PTSD, and traumatic grief children.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, occupied Palestinian territory

Aug 29, 2010 at 05:15 PM

This section includes reports, press releases and other resources published by the humanitarian organizations in the occupied Palestinian (oPt) territory, including OCHA, UN Agencies and International non-governmental organizations.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly argued that the Turkish Islamic Charity IHH that owned the ship Blue Marmara has been linked to various networks of terror. Many journalists reiterated the claim; at times referring to former French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere’s statements about the links between IHH and Al Qaeda.

Previously, Judge Brugiere had reached erroneous judgements that attracted critique from both the left and right establishment of France, a position difficult to reach. In his controversial report that came out in 2006, he accused politicians in Burundi for acts of terror by consulting only two sources, who were established political enemies of the man the judge accused. Both Liberation and Le Figaro, the ideological poles that are hard to bring together, had joined forces to discredit the judge’s previous accusations of terror.

This time by consulting no source at all, Mr. Brugiere points a finger at another alleged source of terror, IHH. According to the former judge, now a professional politician who has ran for office with Sarkozy’s conservative coalition, the Islamic charity is linked to networks of terror. He is wrong, again. This time for three solid reasons:

New York, June 3, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists denounces Israel’s editing and distribution of footage confiscated from foreign journalists aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla that was raided on Monday.

On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces spokesman’s office released edited portions of confiscated video on its YouTube channel, where the footage was labeled as “captured.” The Foreign Press Association in Israel, which represents hundreds of foreign correspondents in Israel, called the use a "clear violation of journalistic ethics and unacceptable" and warned news outlets to "treat the material with appropriate caution."

Depressed about the situation in the Middle East? You may not be looking in the right places

News from Israel/Palestine

by Peter Larson

Israel has carried out deadly bombing raids over Gaza, killling and wounding many in alleged reprisals for a kidnapping/murder in the West Bank. But what effect is its show of muscle having on Israel's reputation around the world?

Several people have written to me in the last week about how discouraged they are about recent developments in the Middle East.

"How much more pain and suffering can anyone endure?""Will it ever change?"

In fact there is lots of reason to be optimistic if you look at what is happening on the world scene.